Septenary Periods, of the children of Israel shall be, then shall their
from: Old inheritance be put unto the inheritance of the tribe
Te s t a m e n t
Astronomy, 1905,
Reviewed by OP
Armstrong
My steadfast
objection to G.
S C H I A PA R E L L I ’ S
work is found
marked by: *#*+*#
on P142. G.
SCHIAPARELLI, (GS), was explicit as a text
revisionist. The liberal ‘higher’ textual
analysis was in vogue around the time of
writing this book. GS was clearly taken up in
this trend. His view of the Jubilee was that it
became added in a later revision to the
Pentateuch. This revision, he claimed, was
entered, not by Moses, but anonymously in
Nehemiah’s era. Thus, the book uses the
terms “First Code” and “Priestly Code”. That
said, GS book presented some potentially
valid concepts. Sadly, GS overlooked the
supernatural provision promised for the
Jubilee, when he opined that a one in 50 Y
Jubilee could not work due famine. Scripture,
on the other hand, promised fulfillment by
miracles:
Lev25:20-22 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat
the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor
gather in our increase: Then I will command My
Blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall
bring forth fruit for three (3) years. And ye shall
sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until
the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat
of the old store .
The 3 fold crop would be sufficient for both
Sabbatical & Jubilee cycles thusly: Y1: normal
harvest, Y2: Sabbath Y harvest, Y3: Jubilee Y
harvest or for selling in Sabbath years.
GS claimed the Daughters of Zelophehad
Numbers 36, a whole chapter, was a
fabricated story. ‘Num36:4 And when the jubilee
whereunto they are received: so shall their
inheritance be taken away from the inheritance of
the tribe of our fathers.’
Instead, Nu36 explained, by example, the
reason for Jubilee years. The Jubilee Law
ensured the inalienably of the tribes from their
land allocations. Lev25:13 ‘In the year of this
jubilee ye shall return every man unto his
possession.’ Prophetically Ezekiel 48 confirmed
these inalienable borders, as indicated by the
graphic.
GS points out that land returns, the 50th year
Jubilee (‫ לבוי לבי‬yobel, ram's horn, jubilee
year, marked by the blowing of cornets),
were not practiced after return from Babylon
captivity. As per Moses Maimonides, 'The
49th year is a Sabbatic Year, the 50th year is
a year of yobel; the 51st forms the beginning
of a new week of years.’ The fifty year Yobel
was endorsed by Philo and also Josephus.
But it was the Geonim school which laid out a
sound view: “after the destruction of the first
Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, the years were
no longer counted by Jubilee periods but only
by Sabbatic Years”
This is logical, but not on a basis of textual
revision of scripture. Because 10 of the 12
tribes lands were resettled by Samaritans.
The 10 tribes lands were no longer available
after the Babylon captivity. Those who did
return from Babylon, had no fixed land
divisions as given by Moses and Joshua.
Furthermore, double punishment is invalid;
not practiced by a just Creator. As the
peoples unto whom Moses Law was given
were previously punished by 1)Ephraim,
exile until the millennial times, & 2)
Babylonian exile of Judea, for 70Y: so the
Promises/Laws of Sabbaths and Jubilee were
voided by forfeiture until the nation of Israel is
fully reconstituted during the millennial era.
From the period of Ezekiel’s 390 years
(starting with Solomon’s apostasy) these
boundaries and divisions were lost by
omission, neglect, and divorce. So upon the
return, only a practice of 7 year debt release
can be enforced. There could be no 50th year
Jubilee as the land divisions of Moses are
gone until millennial times.
Some have worked out a calendar based on
Moses 50 day counts. This work pretty much
invalidates GS conclusion that Jubilee &
Sabbatical counts are mutually exclusive.
P141… “..starving the whole country..” omits
promised divine intervention. This book was
written before start of return, & some
conclusions would be invalidated by rebirth of
Israeli nation in 1947-48.
Section 113 gives 2 formula for determination
of Sabbatical years, either AD or BC. The BC
years prior to time of return under king Cyrus,
should be viewed with suspicion.
[{The Text]}
Ch9, by G. SCHIAPARELLI SEPTENARY PERIODS
p130 The Babylonian lunar week (100) and
the free Jewish week. —-The repose of the
Sabbath.(109) — The year of liberty. — The
year of remission. — The Sabbatic Year. —
Epochs of the Sabbatic Year. — The Jewish
Jubilee. — Questions relating to its origin and
use.
100. The length of the monthly period
determined by the lunar phases was not
easily adapted for all the usages of social life.
Various people's which have reached a
certain degree of civilization, have felt the
necessity of dividing time into shorter
intervals, whether for the regulation of
religious festivals and ceremonies, or so as to
have an easily observable order for markets
and other events occurring at distances of
only a few days apart. Hence the origin of
cycles that include a small number of days.
Thus we find the period of three days among
the Muyscas on the plateau of Bogota of five
days among the Mexicans before the Spanish
conquest, and the week of seven days among
theJews, the Babylonians, and the Peruvians
at the time of theIncas. The period of eight
days is known as used by the Romans in the
republican times (nundinae), and lastly that
often days which was in regular use among
the ancient Egyptians and among the
Athenians. In the majority of cases, these
periods were so arranged as to divide the
lunar month into equal or almost equal parts.
Thus the ten- day period was, among the
Egyptians exactly, among the Athenians
approximately, the third part of a whole
month. The week of the
p131 Babylonians and of the Peruvians was
fixed by the quarters of the lunar period. And
among the Mexicans the five days were a
quarter of their month, which is known to
have consisted of twenty days only.
101. As the length of a lunation is about
29.5 days, a quarter of it comes to 7-3/8 days.
But as men cannot proceed in this matter
other wise than in whole numbers, they are
obliged to keep to the nearest number of
whole days. Hence arises the period of seven
days, representing the nearest equivalent to a
quarter of a lunation.The first and most
ancient form of the week was accordingly to
count successively seven, fourteen, twenty-
one, and twenty-eight days from the
beginning of the month (or from the new
moon), leaving one or two days remaining
over at the end, so as to recommence in a
similar manner the calculation from the
commencement of the next new moon. —
This form of week, bound up with the lunar
phases, was anciently in use among the
Babylonians, as appears from a portion of a
Babylonian calendar preserved in the British
Museum (1). In this precious record, which
unfortunately contains one month only, the
festivals and sacrifices to be celebrated are
indicated, and the part the king ought to take
in them. The seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first,
and twenty-eighth days of the month are
marked as umulimnu, that is, as unlucky
days; and, at the side of those days, various
things are noted which might not be done on
them. The king had to abstain from eating
certain kinds of food, from attending to
decisions affecting the affairs of state, from
going out in his chariot. The priests could not
utter oracles, the doctor could not lay
1 Published in the a Cuneiform Inscriptions of
Western Asia, vol.iv.tab. 33&33. Translation by
Sayce, Records of the Past, first series, vii.
157-68. [See also Jastrow, Religion of Bab. and
Ass. (1898), p.376ff.] Commentary by Zimmera,
KAT.sp.592 [untranslated]. The document is the
transcript of a more ancient copy, made by
order of Asshurbanipal and found in the ruins of
Nineveh.
p132 his hand on a sick person. Men were
not, however, forbidden to attend to their
private affairs, to buy and sell 1.
102. From the week thus bound up with the
lunar phases it was easy to pass to a week
which was purely conventional and rigorously
periodic, such as we now use.The former was
in fact subject to all their regularities and
uncertainties which accompany the
determination of the new moon: it was natural
to resolve this difficulty by making a perfectly
1 This is clearly shown by the dates of the
Babylonian contracts. Boscawen {Trans. Soc.
Bibl. Archaeo Lvi.1-78) has transcribed the
dates of about 400 documents taken from the
archives of the Babylonian business firm, Egibi
and Sons. By classifying these dates according
to the days of the month, I find that the number
of contracts concluded on the seventh,
fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days,
is not at all smaller than the average. These
same documents show that a real and actual
abstention from business matters only took
place on the nineteenth day of each month, i.e.
the forty-ninth day (7x7) counting from the
beginning of the preceding month. This
nineteenth day is also marked, in the
BabylonianCalendar which has been cited
above, asuntillimnuy i.e. diesne/ astus, and all
the rules laid down for the seventh,
fourteenth,twenty-first,andtwenty-eighth days
are valid for then in eteenth day also. But,
inaddition, contracts were not
c o n c l u d e d o n t h e n i n e t e e n t h d a y. P e r h a p s
therefore we must understand the matter thus:
the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first,andtwenty-
eighth days were to be regarded as nefastiin
the palace, but outside the palace, only for
works of magic or divination; while the
nineteenth day was considered nefastus for all
purposes.It does not appear that the days in
question were days of rest among the
Babylonians. And it does not appear that they
employed the word shabattn to describe them.
It is more probable that they meant by it 1ada y
of pacification*(of a deity's anger). The
coincidence derived from the resemblance
between the two words affords no proof in favor
of areal weekly rest or Sabbath among the
Babylonians. [On the use of shabattuin
Assyrian,see the article Sabbath in
Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, iv.
319*. or Zimmern,JCAT.* p.592ff. Since these
articles were written, a lexicographical tablet
belonging to the library of Asshurbanipal has
been discovered by Mr. Pinches, in which
shapattu is given as the name of the 15th day
of the month, i.e. (presumably) of the day of the
Full Moon: see Zimmern in Zcitschr. d.
Deutschen morgenland. Gesellschaft, 1904, pp.
199 sqq. ]
p133 uniform period of seven days, free from
any dependence on the moon or on any other
celestial phenomenon of any kind. In this way
it was easy to render the use of the week
public and popular, by connecting it with
some civil or religious act, for instance with a
festival or a market, which was always held
on the same day of each period, or even with
both a festival and a market. Whether the
Jews arrived at this conception through their
own reflection or received it from others, it is
no longer possible to decide. The institution of
the week is certainly to be ranked among the
most ancient recorded usages of the Jewish
nation, and the Sabbath1 as a day of enforced
rest is found mentioned in the most ancient
documents of the law, such as the two
Decalogues 2 and the First Code3; as also in
the Books of Kings during the time of the
prophet Elisha 4, and in the prophecies of
Amos and Hosea 5. Its origin may possibly go
back to the first beginnings of the Jewish
people, and may well be even earlier than
Moses. Carried by the Jews into their
dispersion, adopted by the Chaldaean
astrologers for use in their divinations,
received by Christianity and Islam, this cycle,
so convenient and so useful for chronology,
has now been adopted through out the world.
Its use can be traced back for about 3,000
years, and there is every reason to believe
that it will last through the centuries to come)
resisting the madness of useless novelty and
the assaults of present and future iconoclasts.
103. It does not appear that the Jews gave
special names to the days of the week,
except to the Sabbath, which was regarded
as the last day of the seven, a suitable
position
1) Shabath=cessavit (abaliquoopere),
feriatusest, qnievit: Shabbath = quies,
sabbatnm. 2)For the first Decalogue, see
Exod.xx. 8-11 and Deut.v. 12-15. For the
second, Exod. xxxiv. 21., 3)Exod.xxiii.12.
4)2Kings iv. 23. 5)Hosea ii.11; Amos viii.5.
p134 for the rest which ought to follow after
labour. No trace of such names appears in
the books of the Old Testament, From the
titles, however, which are found at the head of
certain Psalms in the version of the LXX and
in the Vulgate 1, it may be argued that, at any
rate in the centuries immediately preceding
the Christian era, the Jews indicated each
day by its numerical name, designating the
day following the Sabbath as the first day, its
successor as the second, and so on. The
sixth day, which preceded the Sabbath, was
described as 'the day before the Sabbath';
and at a later date it was called by the
Hellenistic Jews (παρασκευή) or ‘preparation'
for the Sabbath, which corresponds to our
Friday. Similar indications are found in the
New Testament 2.
104. Many believe that the week had its
origin from the seven stars visible to the
naked eye which traverse the celestial zodiac.
For the ancient astronomers--and astrologers
these stars were the sun, the moon, and the
five larger planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, andSaturn. On this subject we may
observe first that to associate the sun and the
moon, stars giving so much light and of so
appreciable a diameter, with the five so much
smaller planets just mentioned, is not what
might be expected of the primitive systems of
cosmography. To perceive their common
characteristic, which is periodic movement
within the zodiacal belt, an accurate and
sufficiently prolonged study is required.
1) In these titles the Psalms are mentioned as
to be sung on particular days: Psalm xxiv on
the first day after the Sabbath; Psalm xlviii on
the second day after the Sabbath; Psalm xciv
on the fourth day after the Sabbath; Psalm xciii
on the day preceding the Sabbath. These
indications are absent in the Hebrew text of the
Psalms, a fact which seems to prove that their
origin is later than the composition of the
Psalms themselves. 2) Matt, xxviii.1; Mark xv.
42, xvi.9; Luke xxiii.54, xxiv,1;
p135 It is also necessary to have recognized
that Mercury and Venus as morning stars are
the same as Mercury and Venus as evening
stars. All this seems to have been known to
the Babylonians, at any rate at the time of
Nebuchadnezzar, who boasts in one of his
inscriptions of having raised a temple to the
seven rulers of heaven and earth 1. And yet,
in spite of this, the week of the Babylonians,
as was seen above, was not a planetary
week like our own, but was founded upon
quarters of lunation. In the Babylonian
Calendar of which we have already spoken,
there is no indication either of the planets or
of the corresponding deities. On the other
hand, the oldest use of the free and uniform
week is found among the Jews, who had only
a most imperfect knowledge of the planets.
The identity of the number of the days in the
week with that of the planets is purely
accidental, and it is not permissible to assert
that the former number is derived from the
latter.
105. The numerous relations, whether
peaceful or war-like, of the Jews with Rome,
when she had succeeded to the inheritance
of the kings of Syria, had the effect of making
the seven days week and the Sabbath known
to the Romans even before the Empire was
established. Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, Persius,
Juvenal, speak of the Sabbath as of
something universally known; and Josephus
could write that in his time there was no city,
whether Greek or non-Greek, where the
Jewish habit of celebrating the Sabbath was
unknown 2. About the same time men began
already to attribute to the various days of the
week those same names of pagan divinities
which are still employed at the present day,
with only small alteration, among all the neo-
Latin peoples, and are also used among the
peoples of Germanic origin, though in a form
modified according to northern mythology.
1)Ball, The India House Inscription of
Nebuchadnezzar the Great (in Records of the
Past, 2nd Series, vol.iii. pp.102-23). 2) C.
Apionem, ii.39.
P139: … 108. Periods of Seven Years.
Even from the first times of the Mosaic
legislation, the interval of seven years was
used to regulate certain religious or civil
ordinances. read in the First Code 1: 'When
thou has thought a Hebrew slave, he shall
serve thee for six years; but in the seventh
year he shall go out free-without paying for
his redemption/ This arrangement is repeated
together with strong exhortations in
Deuteronomy 2 ; it is considered as a duty by
Jeremiah 3, and is again mentioned in Ezekiel
4, from whom we also know that this seventh
year was called the year of liberty. 'In this
case the septennial period was a mere
interval, the
1)Exod.xxi.2 2)Deut.xv.12-18. 3)Jer.xxxiv.13,14.
4)Ezek. xlvi.17.
P140 beginning and end of which varied
according to persons and places. On the
other hand, a fixed septennial period, a true
heptaeter is common to the whole Jewish
people, exists in the period which prescribed
the remission of debts.Perhaps this, too, was
not originally tied down to dates common to
the whole people.The First Code says nothing
at all about it. The oldest mention of the (year
of remission' (shemittah) is found in
Deuteronomy 1: 'At the end of seven years
thou shalt make the remission: and this is the
manner of the remission. Every creditor shall
remit that which he hath given on loan to his
neighbor and to his brother, because the
remission of Yahweh as been proclaimed ....
Beware that there be not a wicked thought in
thy heart, saying to these, The seventh year,
the year of remission, is at hand; and that it
make thee not to turn the eye of evil towards
thy brother, and thou give him nought, & etc.
Here there is clearly indicated a fixed and
common period for the creditors and debtors
of the whole nation. This view is further
confirmed by another ordinance also
contained in Deuteronomy2, where it is
prescribed that in the year of remission the
reading of the Law is to take place before the
whole people. The observance of the year of
remission and of its septennial cycle, would
accordingly go back to the date of Josiah king
of Judah, under whom (and, to be precise, in
the eighteenth year of his reign, 621b.c.,
according to an old and very probable
opinion, the prophetic code of legislation
contained in Deuteronomy was proclaimed. In
the epoch of Nehemiah the seventh year of
remission was in full operation3; no traces of it
are found later, and it seems that it was
abolished soon after his date.
109 Repose of the Land: Sabbatic Year.
The institution of a septennial repose of the
land (also called the 'Sabbath
1)Deut.xv.1-9 2)Deut.xxxi.10. 3)Neh.x.31.
P141 {goP1} of the land &/or the 'Sabbatic
Year') seems to date back to the first
beginnings of the Mosaic law. It appears to
have been originally instituted either to secure
the rest for the soil which was necessary in
an epoch when agriculture had not advanced
far, or for philanthropic objects. The First
Code says 1: 'Six years thou shall sow thy
land, and shall gather the fruits there of; but in
the seventh year thou shall leave it and
abandon it, that the poor of thy people may
eat thereof....The same shall thou do with thy
vineyard, and with thy olive yard /It is, of
course, to be understood that this repose of
the land was not to take place
simultaneously over all properties, and not
even overall parts of the same piece of
property: otherwise bad provision would have
been made for the philanthropic object of the
institution, and the danger would have arisen
of starving the whole country once every
seven years. This law of the rest for the land,
after being vigorously enforced for sometime,
was afterwards irregularly observed and
finally abandoned altogether: Deuteronomy
makes no mention of it, nor does any prophet
before the exile, and it seems to have fallen
into oblivion even in the time of Ezra and
Nehemiah 2
1)Exod.xxiii.10,n . Some critics, among them
Hupfeld, Reuss, and Wellhausen, have
concluded from the expression leave it (the
fruit) and abandon it, 'that to abandon the fruit
of the seventh year does not necessarily
involve that the land must be left uncultivated
and the vine unpruned. The earth would
according to this view be cultivated in the
seventh year too and its fruit abandoned to the
poor. This might stand, did not the preceding
verse say quite clearly: 'Six years thou shall
sow thy land, * thus seeming to exclude
sowing in the seventh year. The words 'repose
of the land' seems to decide the question., a
2)Nehemiah (x.31), enumerating the duties to
which the people solemnly binds itself in
relation to its God, says: 'We will forgo the
seventh year and the exaction of every debt';
but is completely silent about the repose of the
land. It has been wrongly believed that this
repose is included in the expression 'forgo the
seventh year 1 : but these words refer to the.
remission of debts and
p142 goP1 110 At a time which can not well
be accurately fixed, but was in any case later
than that of Nehemiah and earlier than the
final redaction of the Pentateuch and its
consecration as the Divine Law, there was
inserted in the Pentateuch a collection of
provisions relating to this subject which are
completely different from those sanctioned
shortly before by Ezra and sworn to by the
people about 445b.c. *#*+*# These new rules
are contained in Leviticus xxv, with some
additions in xxvii. Their effect is that the
liberation of the Israelite slaves and the
remission of debts are to be settled no longer
in every seventh year but in every fiftieth year
instead, that is, in the Year of the Jubilee, in
which there was also to take place the
simultaneous return of all properties acquired
during the preceding fifty years to their former
owners. These provisions remained a dead
letter, as we shall see, and were never carried
into practice. On the other hand the old and
almost forgotten law of the septennial repose
of the land was revived with great effect and
much severity1, almost in the same terms as
those used in the First Code, but with the
important difference that the year of rest was
the same for
regulate the periodical return of this action.
That the Sabbath of the Land had long fallen
into disuse at the time of Jeremiah can be
gathered from a passage of that prophet which
is not found in his book but is preserved in
Chronicles, where, in reference to the
destruction of Jerusalem, it is said (2Chron.
xxxvi.21) that it happened 'that the word of
Jeremiah might be fulfilled, until the land had
been compensated for its years of rest;
through all the time of its abandonment it
rested, to complete the seventy years.'
Jeremiah, therefore, reproved the Jews for
having neglected the Sabbath of the Land,
which the First Code had ordained, and
 considered this to be one of the offenses
which called down the Divine wrath upon
Israel. The passage of Jeremiah is repeated in
almost identical terms in the twenty-sixth
chapter of Leviticus vv.34,35,43), which seems
to be partly take from works by that prophet
which we no longer possess. It is instructive to
compare Lev. xxvi.4,12,17,29,33,37 with Jer.v.
24, xxx.22, xxi.10, xix.9, ix.16, xlvi.12.
1 Lev.xxv.2-7, 20-22,
p143 the whole land of Israel. This ordinance,
which might appear to some absurd and
tyrannical, was evidently introduced in order
to render it easier to provide for its
observance. The poor accordingly, to who
were reserved the spontaneous fruits of the
earth in the year of rest, could satisfy
themselves abundantly every seventh year,
on condition, however, of fasting throughout
the six intervening years. The nation was
more over subjected every seven years to the
danger of a general and terrible famine. in. In
the time before the exile, when the two
kingdoms of Israel and Judah contained
millions of inhabitants living exclusively by
agriculture, such a law would not have been
possible. In the small Jewish community
established after the exile in Jerusalem and in
the village around about, surrounded by
strangers who came everyday to sell pro-
visions 1, the enactment, though a sufficiently
heavy burden, was not so hard to carryout. It
is a fact that it was imposed; and when the
Torah (that is to say, the final and most
comprehensive code of Mosaism as we now
have it) was constituted in a definite manner,
there appeared in it the order for the
septennial repose of the land, to be observed
universally in the seventh year, which was
therefore called a 'SabbaticYear/ It came into
force and was faithfully observed down to the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in
70a.d. The Sabbatic Year did not correspond
to the sacerdotal year, which began in spring,
but to the civil year of the Syrians, which had
now come into use among the Jews, and
whose beginning coincided with the new
moon of the seventh month, generally falling
in October. In this autumn the sowing was
omitted, and in the following spring and
summer gathering in was omitted. Under
ordinary circumstances it was possible to
make the necessary arrangements for
obviating the danger of famine; but in case of
war, and especially of siege, the
1Neh,x.31,xiii.16,
p144 consequences of the Sabbatic Year
made themselves felt on more than one
occasion. We have evidence of it in the first
Book of the Maccabees, where it is related
that, when Antiochus Eupator had occupied
Bethsura, the inhabitants had to leave the
town as they had no more to eat, 'because it
was the Sabbath of the land/ and shortly
afterwards that famine was felt in Jerusalem
'because it was the seventh year, 'and those
of the Gentiles who had come into Judaea
had consumed all the rest of the provisions in
store1. Josephus narrates in the same way
that during the siege laid by Herod to
Jerusalem, the famine was aggravated by
reason of the Sabbatic Year then running its
course2.
112. The notices as to various returns of
the Sabbatic Year, which are found in the first
Book of the Maccabees, in the works of
Josephus, and in the Jewish traditions of the
first centuries of our era, allow us to fix with
some certainty the date of some Sabbatic
Years3. Thus, from a study of the chronology
employed in the first Book of the Maccabees,
the result has been reached that the Sabbatic
Year corresponding to the occupation of
Bethsura by Antiochus Eupator (to which we
have alluded above) lasted from the autumn
of 164B.C. to the autumn of the following year
163b.c. The indications of Josephus as to the
siege of Jerusalem effected by Herod with the
aid of the Romans under Sosius4, place the
capture of the city in the consulship of M.
Agrippa and Caninius Gallus; hence it can be
inferred that the Sabbatic Year then in
progress began with the autumn of 38b.c. and
1 Macc.vi.49,53.8 2 Josephus,Ant.xiv.16.1 3 The
remarks which follow are mainly dependent upon
the discussions and results published by Schiirer
in the fourth edition of his most learned work,
Gesehichtedesjlidischen Volkesim Zeitalter Jesu
Christie vol.i.pp.32-8 [cp. Eng.tr.of earlier
edition,I.i.41]. 4Josephus, Ant. xiv.16.
p145 ended with the autumn of 37b.c. A third
fixed point is furnished by a Jewish tradition
according to which the year in which the
Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the
Romans had been preceded by a Sabbatic
Year: that Sabbatic Year accordingly lasted
from the autumn of 68a.d. to the autumn of
69a.d.1
113. {goP1} Comparing these dates
together, we find that the interval between the
first and second of the Sabbatic Years
indicated is one of 126 years, or of eighteen
times seven years; and that the interval
between the second and third is one of 105
years, or of fifteen times seven years. We
may conclude from this that during the whole
time comprised between the revolt of the
Maccabees and the destruction of Jerusalem
(and probably also for a certain time before
the Maccabees) the recurrence of the
Sabbatic Year was rigorously and regularly
observed from seventh year to seventh year,
without any interruption. If therefore anyone
wishes to ascertain whether a given year was
a Sabbatic Year, he will be able to do it easily
by examining whether the interval between
that year and one of the three years above
mentioned gives a number divisible by seven.
To put it generally, if be any whole number,
we can say that the beginning of the Sabbatic
Years took place in the years (7n+3) before
Christ and in the years {7N+5} after Christ, in
autumn. For instance, if n=0, it will follow that
in the autumn of the year 3 b.c. (for n=0) a
Sabbatic Year began, and so also in the
autumn of the year 5 or 26 a.d. {for N=0, or 3}
And if be given the value of all the whole
numbers successively [i.e. suppose n or N =
1, 2, 3, 4,...], anyone who wishes can format
a table of all the years before or after Christ in
the autumn of which a Sabbatic Year began.
The question may now be raised, whether the
period of the Sabbatic Year can be
considered as a continuation of the
analogous period of remission which fell out
of use
1Jerusalem was taken by Titus in the summer of
the year 70a.d.
p146 when the Sabbatic Year was instituted
after the time of Nehemiah? This is probable
enough in itself; but positive arguments and
historical proofs cannot be adduced in
support of it. Neither in the Old Testament or
else where can any date be found which
allows the years of remission to be calculated
in the way which we have been able to adopt
for the Sabbatical Years.
114 The Jubilee (‫ יבל יובל‬yobel, ram's horn,
jubilee year, marked by the blowing of
cornets) Those legislators of Leviticus, who
came after Ezra, (??opa) tried to substitute
for the septennial period of the year of liberty
and for that of the year of remission, both of
which had been abolished, a period of fifty
years which was named the Jubilee because
its beginning was proclaimed in the autumn of
the fiftieth year by uttering with trumpets and
horns called yobel, which were appropriated
for this purpose, a cheerful musical sound1.
The arrangement of this cycle is defined as
follows2: 'Thou shall number seven Sabbaths
of years, that is, seven times seven years, so
that the space of the seven Sabbaths shall be
forty-nine years; and then shall thou cause
the sound of the trumpet to come forth on the
tenth day of the seventh month, on the day of
atonement, throughout all the country. And ye
shall hallow the fiftieth year in the land, and
ye shall proclaim liberty for all its inhabitants.
It shall be an Jubilee unto you, and each man
shall return to his possession and each man
to his family. A jubilee shall the fiftieth year be
unto-you. Ye shall not sow, neither reap that
which growth of itself, and ye shall not gather
the grapes-on the undressed vines....In
selling or in buying (a field) ye shall not
deceive one another; according to the
number of years that have passed since the
Jubilee shall
1 in Palestine at that time, or with the system of
As I am informed by a friend, yobel most
probably meant a ram (Josh6:4-5); then it was
applied to a rams horn instead of a trumpet
(Exod.xix13:cp.R.V.margin) 2Lev.xxv.8-42.
p147 the price increase or diminish; because
that which is sold is the number of the crops
(i.e. to the next Jubilee). Ye may not sell the
land forever, because mine is the land^ and
ye are guests and tenants (usufructuaries)
with me.... And when thy brother has grown
poor and is sold to thee, thou shall not treat
him like a slave; but as a workman, as a
temporary member of the house, shall he
remain with thee down to the Year of Jubilee;
the shall he depart free, he and his children,
and return to his own family and to the
possession of his father's. For they are my
servants whom I have freed from the land of
Egypt: they shall not be sold as slaves. 'As
we see, the object of all these rules is to
reduce to a longer period, and so render less
severe and easier to observe, the septennial
recurrences of the year of liberty, and of the
repose of the land, as prescribed in the First
Code and in Deuteronomy.
115 The year of liberty, which was originally
intended to be the seventh from the beginning
of the term of servitude, and from which the
majority of slaves were once able to profit, is
now fixed for all without distinction in the Year
of Jubilee; and here with the hope of
regaining liberty without paying redemption
money became, for a great number ,
completely illusory. The year of remission
seems to have disappeared from the Code,
and to have fallen out of use after Nehemiah.
There is no mention of it in the Jubilee
legislation of Lev.xxv&xxvii. As regards the
Sabbath repose of the land, it was certainly in
appearance 1 an advantage to landed
proprietors to render the renovation b of the
soil rarer by imposing it every fifty years
instead of the original seven,
1I say in appearance, because we are not well
acquainted with the conditions of agricultural land
cultivation employed. Experience has shown that,
where abundant and good manure is not
available, repose becomes necessary at intervals
even shorter than seven years.
p148 but the benefit which the poor derived
from it was clearly diminished by the same
amount. On the other hand, a great benefit for
the whole nation and an effect of moral and
social importance might have been produced
by the return of the estates to their old owners
in the Year of Jubilee; this would have had the
result of preventing the impoverishment of
families and the excessive accumulation of
the real property of the country in the hands
of one individual. By making God the
universal owner of all estates and of all
slaves, and reducing themselves to mere
usufructuary occupants for a limited time, the
Israelites would have found the means of
preventing (up to a certain point) the
excessive inequality of fortunes, and would
thus have provided a solution of the great
social problem which so much troubles
modern thinkers at the present day. In the
mind of the legislator the redemption of
slaves was certainly strictly dependent on the
conception of the return of properties every
fifty years; the repose of the land was
undoubtedly meant to render the passage
from one cultivator to another easier. But the
interpretation of these rules in detail and, still
more, their prescribed coexistence with the
SabbaticYear, have created serious difficulties
about which it would not be proper to be silent
here.
116 In Leviticus the law of the Jubilee
begins by saying: *Thou shall number seven
Sabbaths of years, that is, seven times seven
years, so that the space of the seven
Sabbaths of years shall be forty-nine years /
Here the phrase * Sabbath of years does not
mean (as it could be interpreted) any period
of seven consecutive years, but that seventh
year which completes the week of seven
years and is destined for the repose of the
land: in other words, the ‘Sabbath of years' is
the Sabbatic Year, just as the Sabbath of
days is the Sabbath Day. Notice further that
after counting seven Sabbaths of years we
ought to arrive at a total of
p149 forty-nine (49) years, and this could not
be unless the 49th year were itself a 'Sabbath
of years /After this Sabbath one year will still
remain, the fiftieth year of the cycle, which will
be the Jubilee Year: in other words, the first
Jubilee cycle will exceed by one year the
seven weeks of years. The result will be this:
inconsequence of the regular, never
interrupted progression of the Sabbatic Years
from seventh year to seventh year
(see§§112,113), the arrangement of these
years in the second Jubilee cycle will no
longer be that prescribed by Leviticus, and
another arrangement different again will take
place in the third Jubilee cycle, and soon in
succeeding cycles. And only for the first cycle
will it be true that, when the seventh Sabbath
year is finished, the total will amount to forty-
nine years.
117. Now, it would be possible to escape
this difficulty by assuming that by ‘Sabbaths
of years' (shabbethoth shanim) we ought to
understand not Sabbatic Years but mere
periods of seven years, within which the
Sabbatic Year could occupy the first, or the
last, or any place. In this case the years of the
seven weeks of years would always be forty-
nine, (49), and the Jubilee period would
always be completed in the following year, the
fiftieth, 50th. Even if this interpretation be
admitted (and there is much to be said
against it), all difficulties would not be thereby
removed. It is in fact clear that, if the first
Jubilee cycle begins with the first year of the
week of years, it will also end with the first
year. Again, the second Jubilee cycle will
begin with the second year of the week of
years, and also end with the second year. By
continuing the calculation we see that the
third Jubilee cycle will begin with the third
year of the week of years and also end with
the third year, and soon. It thus results that
the fiftieth (50th) year, that of the Jubilee,
must fall successively in all the seven years
which compose the
p150 week of years. Sometimes, however, it
will happen that the Jubilee Year is
immediately preceded or immediately
followed by the Sabbatic Year. And as the
repose of the land is obligatory in both years
equally, the final result will inevitably be that it
will be necessary to allow the land to rest for
two consecutive years. The consequences
can easily be understood if were present to
our imagination what Italy would become if
two harvests of the land were completely
omitted, one after the other. They would have
been much more serious still among the
Israelites in Palestine, where the inhabitants
lived almost entirely upon the fruits of the
earth, industrial occupations being certainly
very small in extent and commerce
completely non-existent. Ewald1 has sought
for a solution of this difficulty in away which
appears to me to be entirely illusory, as he
practically assumes that the last week of
years in> the Jubilee period is a week of eight
years: in other words, that the Sabbatic Years
throughout the period are the seventh,
fourteenth, twenty-first, twenty-eighth, thirty-
fifth, forty-second, and fiftieth. Another similar
answer had been propounded by the great
scholar Moses Maimonides, with whose view
Ideler2 also associates himself. Maimonides
says: 'The forth-ninth year is a Sabbatic Year,
the fiftieth year is a year of yobel; {goP1} the
fifty-first forms the beginning of a new week of
years.’ This interpretation places a repose of
the land in the forty-ninth and in the fiftieth
year of every period, thus aggravating the
difficulty on which we laid stress above in
regard to the practice of allowing the land to
rest for two consecutive years. Both solutions
are also contrary to the law of the Sabbatic
Year, which supposes a regular and uniform
interval of seven years, as the law of the
Sabbath Day supposes a regular
1 Ewald, Antiquities, p.375. 2Ideler, op.cit.i. pp.
503-4.
p151 and uniform interval of seven days. Now
it is quite certain that during the existence of
the second Temple this regularity in the
periods of the Sabbatic Year was consistently
observed, as has been proved above by
historical dates ranging from the epoch of the
Maccabees down to the destruction of the
second Temple by the Romans.
118. All these difficulties have their root in
the fact that the number 50 of the Years of the
Jubilee cycle is not exactly divisible by seven,
the number of the years of the Sabbatic cycle.
It would easily be made to disappear if one
could interpret the text of the law in such a
way as to extract 49 years from it instead of
fifty. The the Jubilee Year (that is to say, the
49th year) would also be a Sabbatic Year, and
a more solemn Sabbatic Year than the six
others which had preceded it in the course of
the cycle. This expedient seems already to
have presented itself very readily to the minds
of some doctors of the Jewish law. In fact the
Book of Jubilees1, which is held to have been
composed not long before or after the
Christian era, arranges the whole chronology
of the facts contained in the Pentateuch
according to Jubilees of 49 years, whence it
derives its name. And yet clearly at the same
time Philo and Josephus2 were affirming that
the Jubilee period was one of 50 years.
{goP1} The period of 49 years was also
accepted by a certain Rabbi Jehudah, who
was persuaded, according to the statement in
the Talmud3, that the last Year of one Jubilee
period was
1See the translation of this book by Littmann,
published in Kautzsch, Die Apokryphen und
Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments,vol.ii
(Tubingen,1900). [English translation by
R.H.Charles, London,1902.] 2Quoted by Ideler,
op.cit.i. p.506. 3Ideler, op.cit. i.p.503, cites for this
the tractate in the Talmud called Erubin.
p152 to be counted as the first of the next
Jubilee period; so that the duration of the
cycle remains one of 50 years only in
appearance but in reality is reduced to 49, the
order of the Sabbatic Years continuing to be
perfectly preserved. The doctors of the school
of the Geonim, {goP1} which was the first
school after the redaction of the Talmud was
definitely closed1, agreed to this method of
interpretation, and cited a certain tradition
according to which, after the destruction of
the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, {goP1}
the years were no longer counted by Jubilee
periods but only by Sabbatic Years. They
even constructed a system of chronology
according to these years, in relation to which
their solution is in complete harmony with the
formulae established above on the basis of
historical dates. Among modern
chronologists, some of the most authoritative,
such as Scaliger and Petavius, have been in
favor of a duration of 49 years. Yet there are
objections to this opinion also, as it does not
accord well with the text of the law: that text
indicates too clearly the period of 50 years.
That in the mind of the legislator the duration
was to be of 50 years and not of 49, can also
be proved from the fact that he has found it
necessary (in Lev.xxv. 11, 12) to enjoin the
repose of the land in the Jubilee Year. This
would have been totally unnecessary had the
period been one of 49 years, since the
legislator could not have been ignorant that in
this case the Jubilee Year coincided with a
Sabbatic Year, so that there would be no
occasion to make a special order for the
repose of the land.
119. Which ever of the two hypotheses (of
50 or 49 years) one may incline to prefer, it is
impossible to arrive at a satisfactory
interpretation. The reason lies in the fact that
in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus two
1Ideler,ibid.
p153 systems of rules have been combined
together, which are not only different but
actually irreconcilable with each other- the
septennial system of the Sabbatic Year, and
the Jubilee system of 50 years. These two
systems cannot be considered as forming
part of one and the same legislation; they
have a different origin, and were probably
conceived by different persons at different
times. Their incompatibility gives us the right
to predict that if the one system was put into
practice at a given epoch, the other could not
have made way at the same time and must
have remained in the condition of a mere
project This is what really happened. Good
historical evidence makes it quite certain that
the Sabbatic Year was introduced into the
rites of Judaism sometime after Ezra and
Nehemiah, and continued to be observed with
the utmost regularity down to the destruction
of the second Temple; while as to the actual
observance of the Jubilee we find the most
complete silence through out, in the writers of
all epochs.
120. The idea of the Jubilee, which is to be
celebrated after seven weeks of years, is
manifestly derived by analogy from that of the
solemnity in spring, which (as we have said
above) was celebrated when the harvest was
finished, after seven weeks of days had
elapsed from the offering of the formerly and
actually on the fiftieth day1 — a solemnity of
ancient institution which is already mentioned
in the First Code and again sanctioned by the
law of Deuteronomy. But either in the First
Code nor in Deuteronomy is any allusion to
be found to the Jubilee; that is only alluded to
in the 25th and 27th chapters of Leviticus and
in one passage in Numbers 2. The prophets
were
1 See above: ch.viii. §96. 2 In Lev.xxv and xxvii in
the law of the Jubilee is propounded, and its rules
and exceptions are explained, in remarkably full
detail. We have no other mention of the Jubilee in
the Old Testament except in
p154 completely ignorant of it; otherwise they
would not have had occasion to inveigh, as
they do, against the accumulators of large
estates. Isaiah says (v.8): *Woe to those that
join house to house and add field to field, until
all the space is occupied and ye dwell alone
as inhabitants of the land. 'Similarly Micah (ii.
2): ‘Woe to those that desire fields and seize
the by violence, and desire houses and take
them away; they oppress a man and his
house, even a man and his heritage.’ But
even during the period of the existence of the
second Temple there is no evidence attesting
a single celebration of the Jubilee; and yet so
memorable and so extraordinary an event
must have left some record of its occurrence.
It is true that some writers of that epoch
allude to the Jubilee, and we have already
mentioned Josephus, Philo, and the Book of
Jubilees. But these evidently derive all their
knowledge of it from Leviticus; sufficient proof
may be found in their not agreeing as to the
length of the period, the first two authors
putting it at fifty years, the third at footy-nine.
Josephus also {Ant. iii.12), when speaking of
the Jubilee, shows himself to be ill informed,
and attributes to Moses ordinances
completely different from those which we read
in Leviticus. All this would be impossible if the
Jubilee had been a fact of experience for
them, publicly known and observed. In what
way, however, two such contradictory laws
have been combined together in the Priestly
Code, and how they came to find themselves
associated and even amalgamated together
in one and the same chapter1, it is no longer
Num.xxxvi.4, on the subject of the daughters
of Zelophehad: allusion (NO-it is a DIRECT
reference, opa) is there made to there turn off
estates to their owners. In Exod. xix.13 and
Joshua vi. 4-6 the reference is only to the
instrument called yobel [see p.146, note1]: not
to the period of the Jubilee, as some have
thought.
1 In Lev.xxv, verses 1-7 deal with the Sabbatic
Year, 8-19 with the Jubilee; 20-22 again refer
to the Sabbatic Year, and from 23 onwards it is
again the Jubilee. Here is shown the
negligence of a compiler who welds together
heterogeneous or even contradictory
materials.
p155 possible to know exactly. But certain
facts ought not to be omitted which are
connected with this question.
121 goP1 The Priestly Code as it exists for
us in the Pentateuch, although having its
roots in the First Code, in Deuteronomy, and
in the ritual of Solomon's Temple, is
principally, as is well known, the result of
manifold and complicated legislatively labour
which took place during and after the exile,
over a total period amounting perhaps to two
centuries. The great problem of reconstituting
the nation by adapting its ancient uses to new
circumstances was undoubtedly an object
pursued with much zeal, and it gave occasion
for various proposed laws, some of which
secured, others did not secure, others again
only secured for a certain time the favor of the
public. We may cite in evidence of this the
experiment (a somewhat fantastic one, to
speak candidly) of a similarly suggested
system of laws relating chiefly to the Temple,
to its personnel, and to rites, which are
preserved to our own times in the last nine
chapters of the Book of Ezekiel; not a few
traces of this system succeeded in making
their way, long afterwards, into the Priestly
Code. Another example of this process of
formation may be found in the seventh
chapter of Zechariah, where we see clearly
that certain. questions of ritual remained
unsettled in his time, and that certain
practices were then in use of which no sign is
any longer to be found in the later laws. To all
these uncertainties the legislation of Ezra to a
certain extent put an end, when it was
solemnly proclaimed and sworn to by the
people in 445b.c. or a little later; not so much
so, however, but that new additions and
modifications of great importance were
supplementarily made, down to the time
(about 400b.c.?) when the Torah was finally
consecrated as a sacred and invariable
Canon under the
p156 form of the existing Code of the
Pentateuch. It is accordingly no matter for
surprise that the result should have been a
collection, which was not always well
arranged, of laws belonging to different
epochs, sometimes even contradictory one of
another.
122 Returning now to the two laws
contained in the 25th chapter of Leviticus, we
may observe that one of them, relating to the
Sabbatic Year, though sanctioned at so late a
date (§§110&111), seems to have been
proposed as early as during the exile. It is
declared, namely, very shortly afterwards in
the context (xxvi.33-5), that in the time of the
exile* the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the
time that it shall remain desolate and that ye
are in the country of your enemies.... It shall
rest all the time that it shall stand desert,
because it rested not in your Sabbaths while
ye dwelt in it. 'Only a prophet of the exile
could speak in these terms; and that prophet,
if we accept the evidence of a passage in
Chronicles, could ben other than Jeremiah1.
The law of the Jubilee, reducing the liberation
of slaves and the repose of the land, to every
fiftieth year, produced a considerable
alleviation of burdens. It is accordingly not
probable that it was conceived in the fervor of
ideas, and in the spirit of zeal, suitable to the
period of the exile, a time of hope and of
expectation, in which no duty seemed too
severe for the people to bind themselves to
undertake in the restored Jerusalem. A law so
practical and so well adapted to the straitened
circumstances in which the Israelite
community lived for a longtime after
Zerubbabel, was certainly proposed after the
return from exile. Neither of the laws seems
to have been contained in the code of Ezra.
In the oath imposed upon the people during
the solemn convocation2, mention is made
only
12Chron.xxxvi.ax. See above, p.141, note2.
2 Neh.x.31.
p157 of the septennial remission of debts.
We may conclude, therefore, that either law
had been observed before, but only
expounded in books of older date, and that
both were introduced into the Priestly Code
by its last compiler at a time subsequent to
Ezra. He seems to have had the intention of
combining in it, as in a corpus Juris, many
laws, ancient and modern, which came to his
notice; at any rate those which did not conflict
too manifestly with the principal rules of
Mosaism, even though they might be in none
too great harmony with them'1.
123 In connexion with the Jubilee we may
notice in addition, on the ground of curiosity,
that if the Jews had fixed it at forty-nine years,
not only would it have been possible to
arrange the Sabbatic Years in it conveniently,
but they would also have gained the
advantage of being able to use it for the
regulation of the intercalary months, and for
determining the beginning of the year. The
period of forty-nine
1 The ten chapters of Leviticus, xvii-xxvi (and thus,
also, the laws of the Sabbatic Year and of the
Jubilee, along with them), together constitute a
unity which offers distinct characteristics from the
rest of the Priestly Code. Accordingly, various
critics (Graf, Hupfeld, Reuss, Wellhausen) would
wish to recognize in them what is practically a
separate code, earlier than the Priestly Code, and
amalgamated at a later date with the other
elements of the latter. If it be admitted that the two
laws of the Sabbatic Year and of the Jubilee were
originally included in this separate collection, the
eclectic combination of these contradictory
elements would be due to its author and not to the
final editor of the Priestly Code. But Wellhausen's
examination of Lev.xxv (Composition des
Hexateuchs, ed.3, pp.164-7) does not appear to
have led to decisive results. Wellhausen seems to
favor the idea that the collection in Lev.xvii-xxvi
originally contained only the law of the Sabbatic
Year, and that the law of the Jubilee was
introduced into it later. The final results would not
be materially different from those expounded
above in the text. All that is said about the law of
the Jubilee in Lev.xxvii, and the allusion to it in
Num.xxxvi.4, seem to be additions made by the
last editor of the Priestly Code.
p158 years constitutes, in fact, an
astronomical lunisolar cycle, not so very
much inferior in accuracy to the famous
Metonic cycle of nineteen years, and greatly
superior to the octaeteris. It is found by
calculation that 606 lunation's are nearly
equal to forty-nine solar years, the lunation's
falling short only by thirty-two hours1. This is
equivalent to saying that if the calendar be
regulated, as it was among the Jews, chiefly
by observation of the moon, the supposition
that after 606 lunation's forty-nine years
exactly have passed, would produce an error
of only thirty-two hours in regard to the
position of the sun and the course of the
seasons— an error which could only become
appreciable in agriculture practice at the end
of eight or ten periods. Thus the foundations
of a simple and practical calendar are
spontaneously offered, without reckoning the
utility which would be derived from a cycle of
such length as one of forty-nine years, for the
computation of time and for establishing the
dates of events. But it may be regarded as
certain that the Israelites never had any
notion of such a way of regulating their
Passover. So far as chronology is concerned,
it cannot be doubted that the habit of
reckoning times by weeks of years2, or by
weeks of weeks of years 3, had its root, not in
astronomical phenomena, but simply in the
superstitious veneration with which the Jews
(and not they only) have always regarded the
number seven .
1 Supposing the solar year to consist of 365.2422
days, and a lunation of 29.5306 days, we have
this result: 49years = 17896.86 days 606
lunation's= 17895.54 days Difference= 1.32 days
Notice that in forty-nine years the error of the
Julian Calendar amounts to 0.40 day. 2Dan. ix.
24-7. 3 As in the Book of Jubilees, where all the
chronology of the Pentateuch has arranged
according to periods of forty-nine years.

p159 It was out of respect for the number

seven and for its square forty-nine that, as
late as the thirteenth century, the Jewish
authors of the Alphonsine Tables assigned
49,000 years as the period for a complete
revolution of the equinoctial points; while
Hipparchus and Ptolemy had already
y e a r s a n d
calculated it better at 36,000 years, and we
know now that it is really somewhat less than
26,000.